Treatment for Severe Childhood Eczema (My Daughter Jasmine)

This is our Jasmine.

When Jasmine was just 6 weeks old little red spots began to appear on her cheeks. By three months old she had oozing red areas bigger than the palms of her hands on each cheek. She was misdiagnosed by two different doctors at Sunnybrook as having impetigo and when I disagreed with the diagnosis I was yelled by a nurse: "If you don't give her antibiotics she could die!"

At 5 months old I took her to a paediatrician. Multiple creams were prescribed and finally I agreed to give her antibiotics. There was no improvement. The paediatrician was mean, rude and useless but at 16 months she eventually referred me to an allergist. A scratch test for the 8 major allergens turned up completely negative and the allergist told me to start feeding her everything. The next day I offered her some yogurt. She spat it out and wiped her mouth with her hands. Within minutes her lips and fingers began to swell up like popcorn. So much for the allergist.

At 18 months I felt that Jasmine's skin had reached a crisis point. Bright red patches of eczema covered more than half her body and she scratched sometimes until blood and tissue were under her fingernails. At night she couldn't sleep unless she was 'sedated' with Benadryl and Tylenol. I was beside myself with frustration and deep, deep sadness that my baby was so miserable and I was powerless to help her.

At that point we found Dr. Peter Klassen, a naturopath in Waterloo who had treated my sister's eldest son for eczema and allergies when he was a baby. Dr. Peter ordered an IgG test which examines food sensitivities for over 100 different foods using only 3 tiny drops of blood. While we waited for the results he put both me and Jasmine on a G-I cleanse: no red meat, no dairy, no acids or citrus. The IgG test results revealed that Jasmine had an extreme sensitivity to eggs and a high sensitivity to dairy, gluten, soy, peanuts, sesame and citrus. Immediately those foods were eliminated from her diet and mine, along with preservatives, yeast and sugar. It was essential that I follow the restricted diet strictly, since at that time Jasmine was still nursing up to 20 times/ day. She began a regimen of homeopathic treatments and other supplements including vitamins C and D, calcium/magnesium, acidophilus, fish oil and flax oil.

Within a month Jasmine's eczema was completely gone. GONE. She began to eat and eat and eat and to nurse less. She slept through the night. I recovered my sanity. I fell in love with Dr. Peter....no, no, no, not really. But I sure was impressed!

That was almost a year ago. I have continued to bring Jasmine to Waterloo to see Dr. Peter every 6-8 weeks, and he successfully treated me for severe nausea during my pregnancy too. Over the winter and in the spring I began to introduce soy and wheat back into her diet. She had no negative reaction so I gradually increased the amounts. By June her eczema had returned and I returned her to the restricted diet. I contacted Dr. Peter numerous times in June and July and finally in August we went to see him again (with little Julian along for the ride). He recommended that I restrict my diet again since Jasmine is still nursing 2-3 times/day and he changed her supplements. This time she didn't improve.

At the beginning of this month I spoke to Dr. Peter on the phone and he suggested that he had perhaps exhausted the treatments he could recommend. I choked down a sob as tears filled my eyes. Great, I thought, back to square one. But he had another treatment in mind that he couldn't offer at his office. It's called bioenergetic intolerance elimination. I looked online and found a place that offers the treatment and it's located just 10 minutes from our home.

From the website of D'Avignon Digestive Health Center:

BIE works by “clearing” the energetic pathways of the body. These
bioenergetic pathways, or meridians, whose existence has been confirmed through
electro-magnetic imaging technology, allow energetic signals to flow
continuously throughout the body via the nervous system. Any number of factors
can cause a disruption in the normal (healthy) flow of energy through the body’s
meridians. These disruptions interfere with the communication between the brain
and body, causing energetic abnormalities which can underlie a wide range of
symptoms and conditions, including allergies, sensitivities and
intolerances.
During the procedure, the client is exposed to the allergenic
substance (which is held in a glass vial), while a hand-held device is used to
transmit a low electronic frequency at various meridian sites on the body. As
the electronic frequency clears blocked meridians, the body’s cells interpret
the allergen’s energetic frequency as “non-threatening”, resulting in the
elimination of adverse reactions to the cleared allergen.

 We've attended two sessions so far. Jasmine has been SO cooperative and willing to participate in the treatments. The holistic allergist--we call her Dr. Jane although she is not a doctor--first treated Jasmine for any sensitivities in the foods she is currently eating a lot of: rice, vegetables, chicken. At the next appointment she worked on soy and gluten.

The eczema is not getting any worse and I am not going to start introducing new foods into Jasmine's diet until we've completed at least 4 treatments.  But I am confident that the treatments will be successful and that I won't have to keep Jasmine's diet so restricted for the long term. I am especially looking forward to being able to eat a greater variety of foods too!

I'd really like to know why all these alternative diagnostic tools and holistic treatments are not available through the Health Care System. Clearly the allergist we saw when Jasmine was 18 months old was WRONG, but why couldn't he have recommended the IgG test? And what about the people who can't afford any treatment from a practitioner who isn't an MD? I sure would like to hear the answer from someone like Dalton McGuinty. If his daughter had suffered the way Jasmine had suffered, wouldn't he have spent any amount of money to help her?

So far we estimate that Jasmine's treatment has cost almost $2000, including the cost of travel to Waterloo, visits with Dr. Peter, diagnostic tests, supplements, vitamins, special foods and the BIE treatments. It is money well spent. If it had cost $10,000 we would have still been happy to spend the money. The FREE health care available offered us absolutely nothing in terms of a solution.

We are forever grateful to Dr. Peter for the help he has given us and we highly recommend his services. He has incredible knowledge and his approach is kind and gentle. Just the fact that he would recommend the BIE  treatment for Jasmine is proof of his integrity and his dedication to the well-being of his patients. Although visiting his office is not at all convenient for us, we are committed to seeking his help to enable us to improve and maintain the health of all 6 of us.